What is the importance of abstract in a research paper?

What is the abstract in a research paper?

What is the importance of abstract in a research paper? The process of judging scientific articles is that the editor of the journal first reads your article. If the editor approves this article, he will send the article to the judges. The common denominator of both is the abstract. An abstract for a research article is like the cover of a book. If the book cover is attractive, readers will be encouraged to read your book. In addition to the process of judging scientific articles, many scientific databases only provide abstracts of articles to users. Access to the entire text of research papers is restricted in most journals. So readers will often only read the abstract of your paper. In general, the abstract can be considered an essential part of a research paper.

For these reasons, the abstract is a way to communicate and attract the audience. The author should be able to highlight the most important scientific points of his paper in the abstract. In the following, we want to introduce how to write a great abstract. If you want your abstract to attract the highest percentage of viewers, read the following parts carefully.

How to write an abstract for a research paper

There are two ways to write an abstract. The first case is that you are planning to write your paper for a specific publication or for a homework assignment. In this case, you must follow the instructions and the specific format of the publication. The next step is that you do not have a specific format for writing the abstract. In this circumstance, you must do one of the following two methods.

Informational Abstracts 

You should use the format of informational abstracts when you want to report the results of an experiment or laboratory activity.

Descriptive Abstracts 

The author in the descriptive abstract should give the reader a summary of the paper. In this type of abstract, the reader realizes from the beginning that what he is going to read in the full article.

Contents of Abstracts

Contents of Abstracts

In general, a summary of the most important scientific research information and achievements should be stated in the abstract. However, all the information in the body of the paper is fully expanded and explained. The amount of information that should be assigned and the order in which the information is expressed vary according to the type and nature of the article. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is one of the most authoritative sources used to write abstracts of various papers in social sciences. Handy instructions for writing an abstract are given in this book.

Let us take a look at the ordinary sort of information that expressed in most abstracts:

1. Previous information about your research. The general subject of the research and the main subject of the research.
2. The main questions that exist on this topic and the problems that you intend to address.
3. Information obtained by previous researchers and published in previous papers.
4. Express the importance and necessity of your research. Why is your research worth it? Have you used a new method of study? Is your research going to look at the issue with a new approach? Do you intend to violate previous research information?
5. Describe the research method you used.
6. Results and findings.
7. The importance of your findings and results.

You do not cite sources in your abstract. For this reason, this section may seem a little confusing to readers. A good abstract should explain all of the Paper’s findings, research methods, and issues. The reader must be able to figure out the meaning of the whole text of your paper from the abstract. The abstract should be very simple, fluent, and understandable.

What is the role of an abstract in a research paper

One of the main purposes of writing an abstract is to remove ambiguity. Most of the time, titles and headings are very confusing. Imagine that someone is trying to research California. This person will pay for your paper and download it. He then realizes that this paper is about Chicago and has nothing to do with the main topic of his dissertation. The importance of the abstract is that the reader can easily decide whether or not to read your paper.

In addition, a good abstract can encourage sponsors to help you continue your research. You can get financial aid if the abstract of your article is good enough and convinces the investor that your research is profitable for them.

Abstracts help researchers and students easily and without wasting time decide if your paper is helpful to them and if they can use it as a resource. Also, because all the results are listed in the abstract, the reader can easily reach the desired information.

One way to increase traffic and promote scientific paper is to display it on websites. SEO is a way to optimize web pages. This means that if your abstract is relevant, your article will be displayed to search engines through keywords. So, the possibility of getting clicks will be increased.

Tips for Writing an Abstract

• Although there are different ways to write an abstract, the common denominator of all abstracts is one thing. All abstracts are like book summaries. Instead of giving extra information to the audience in the abstract section, it is better to select a few useful and practical points and expand the abstract around these points.

• It is best to write an article before writing an abstract. Summarizing a book is much easier than writing a book from a book summary. So it is better not to be tempted and not write the abstract before the whole paper is finished.

• The most important reason that motivates the reader to read your paper is to understand the importance of the subject. Unless one is aware of the importance of an issue, he cannot understand why you are talking about it. So in the abstract, it is better to summarize the previous research and mention the reasons for the importance of the article.

• Try to pay attention to keywords. Keywords are the words that people usually use to search on the Internet. This will increase the productivity of your article.

More resources

• How to write a methods section of a research paper
• What does an appendix look like in a research paper
• SIX SAMPLE ABSTRACTS
• Automatic abstract online writing